Written in Partnership with Amir BakianWhen it was launched in 2021 many would have mistaken it for just another passing internet storm. But today, many moons later, the Pudgy Penguins NFT project is still going strong. Comprising 8,888 adorable-looking penguins, the collection provides many NFT investors with a unique opportunity to own one of the digital age’s emerging status symbols.
For the uninitiated, NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are unique collectibles that one can buy and hold for their benefits or even sell later at a profit. Each NFT is unique meaning it is impossible to replicate or replace. Think of expensive art and collectibles that can’t be faked but in a digital setting.
According to Motley Fool, a private investment advisory service, there are innumerable NFTs drawn from different works of art, music, and video game content. However Pudgy Penguins belong to a unique niche of animal-themed profile pictures (PFPs) that continue to dominate the market even as blockchain technology continues to fight for mainstream acceptance.
A Rollercoaster Ride
Launched at the height of an animal-themed PFP bull-run, the Pudgy Penguins project took the market by storm with all its NFTs selling out shortly after their release. However, that initial success was only short-lived as months later rumors of a planned change of ownership started circulating, triggering panic among investors and causing the once promising project to take a dip.
As rumors of a suspected change grew louder, one of the project’s greatest fans, Luca Netz, offered to purchase the collection for 750 ETH (valued at roughly $2.5 million in early 2022). He immediately set out to help the project get its mojo back by coming up with a number of trust and brand management initiatives among them partnering with Sotheby’s – one of the world’s most trusted brokers of collectibles.
Under the new CEO’s stewardship, the project’s floor price rose by more than 400% between January and August of 2022 (a span of 8 months) at a time when the rest of the NFT market registered a drop of 97%.
So far, this collection has grown from great strength to a point of having its daily trading volumes eclipsing those of blue-chip NFTs like BAYC and Cryptopunks.
The New Club Penguin?
The Pudgy Penguins’ unique theme and meteoritic rise to fame evoke the memories of Club Penguin, yet another penguin-themed popular internet sensation of the recent past. Following its release in 2005, the multiplayer online game took the world by storm to a point of attracting the attention of Disney two years down the line. However, just like with Pudgy Penguins, the Club Penguin project would run into headwinds along the way after failing to meet some profit goals that Disney demanded as part of its pre-sale agreement.
With that said, Club Penguin continued to grow hitting an all-time high of over 200 million user accounts in mid-2013.
With both projects sharing a lot of similarities, the cute penguin avatar NFTs are on pace to fill the shoes of their older siblings especially in terms of popularity. So far, if the numbers are anything to go by, this looks like a real likelihood especially as NFTs and metaverses continue to fuel the market for digital assets and as more and more of Gen Z mature and join the modern-day investment space.
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